


North Stars and Lost Poles

by reagancrew



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reagancrew/pseuds/reagancrew
Summary: //and despite it all, you have found some love// folly & the hunter“I came back for you,” she says, her eyes wet. “I came back for you.”And you were not here, she leaves this line unspoken, but you can feel it wrap its way around your neck, choke you with its strength. There cannot be two north stars in the sky at once. You have spent so many months alone, checking the darkness, terrified at the emptiness of the night. You have been spinning so quickly, so out of control, that it was impossible to see her spinning, too, flailing into the night for her own northern point.





	North Stars and Lost Poles

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't written in years. Haven't ever written for this fandom. This is messy, like a love that has no center of gravity. 
> 
> Technically, I think it fits post 3x08.

It is all the push and pull, push and pull that exhausts you. You have so very little control over any of it. Of course, you pretend this is not the truth; you pretend you choose to come and go, to run towards her, to flee, but in the end you are nothing more than the spinning compass needle, unable to choose your own direction.

Your orders are not to fall in love. Your orders are to act as the fisherman, patient, silent, reeling in a little bit at a time so that she does not notice your net until she has already been lifted out of the water and left gasping for breath in the air. Instead, she pulls you towards her so simply; as if she has always been reaching for your hand, pulling you along beside her, two bottles of smuggled wine in her other palm. She does not even recognize the force pulling you together, not in that moment, but your hands shake as you light the cigarette.

Later, in the hotel room, his dry hand scraping along your shoulder, you do not lean away. Your heartbeat increases, your mouth is dry. She is miles away. You ache for her already, but he has pulled you back away from a ledge you’re afraid you’ve already slipped off. He has pulled you back. After he leaves the room, you are sick until you are empty, like when you rode the carousel with your father at five, holding tight to the reins of a white pony, gazing out at the faces speeding by until everything was a blur and you were empty.

Her lips are chapped. Firm against your own. She smells of weed, of lavender. This is a pull, but as you trip out the door, it feels more like a push. For three days, you spin in place, unsure which way is north, unsure how to find solid ground beneath your feet. Your lips chap because you have passed your tongue over them again and again. In the end, her pull is north. “I can’t stop thinking about the kiss,” you breathe. This is not a lie, but nor is it the full truth. You rub your finger across her mouth. For a moment, you are grounded, able to exert your own force and pull her towards you. Here is solid ground. You are sure of it.

It does not last.

She pushes you away. Or perhaps, you force her hand; this is all your own fault after all. And when she runs, you cannot help but follow. Airplanes always feel like sacred things, rising despite the pull of gravity. Escaping. On that flight, rushed, necessary, you can still feel her magnetic field. She is stronger, you realize, than even the planet’s own forces. This pull is exhausting. But you cannot sleep, watching the clouds below you shift and reform and break apart. They are mere wisps. You feel so much like them.

She pushes you away. She pulls you in, her fear more weighty than your own. As you come together in a bed of tangled sheets, a bed that is not your own, you whisper against the delicate skin of her neck, “Please.” She reaches for your wrist, holds tight. “Please. Do not leave me so untethered again.”

You beg that night, in that bed. She kisses your palm, brings your hand to rest against her back. You count her vertebrae silently in your head. Here is a solid ground of such delicate material. “Please.”

Here are two forces, one is north, one is home, and safety. One is supposed to be stationary, but each night you look out from the windows of Leekie’s office – your office – from the window of your new flat in Frankfurt – bare, sterile – you cannot find the star. North has disappeared. You’ve been pushed away, or have you been pulled away into another dimension entirely where even the stars are different? Does this galaxy follow the same delicate rules as your own? You are spinning, and spinning, and spinning searching for the pattern, but here it is lost, and each step feels like misdirection. “I do this to keep you safe. To keep you all safe.” There is no one to hear your whispered pleas now. The cotton of the pillow case grows wet beneath your cheek. “Please help me find home again. Please.”

You are pulled back into a world of secrets. Brains. Babies. Secret experiments. How can she not see how you have worked to protect her, to protect them all? How can she not realize her own strength? This push and pull, it is so exhausting. She has found someone new, someone you do not trust, but the fire in your stomach is difficult to define: guilt, jealousy . . . fear. If she is not tethering you any longer, pushing and pulling, then how will you ever know your place again?

“I came back for you,” she says, her eyes wet. “I came back for you.” _And you were not here,_ she leaves this line unspoken, but you can feel it wrap its way around your neck, choke you with its strength. There cannot be two north stars in the sky at once. You have spent so many months alone, checking the darkness, terrified at the emptiness of the night. You have been spinning so quickly, so out of control, that it was impossible to see her spinning, too, flailing into the night for her own northern point.

“I came back for you,” she says, her eyes wet. In this galaxy you are not lost. In this galaxy, here is her heart, beating so quickly. Here is your heart, burning out of your chest, a fire in your stomach that is not guilt or jealousy or even fear.

You run your finger across her lips, trail down her cheek, until your palm rests against her heart. Here is north. She lifts a shaking hand, palm up to place against your chest. Here is north. The night sky blazes. The ground is solid.

The push and pull has exhausted you both. Here. Now. Finally, rest.


End file.
